Recover windows.old from vista to NT

New Member

I'm in serious trouble, I have a laptop from the company and suddenly i had problems starting it up so i've put in the bootdisk who was delivered with it but instead of NT it was Vista.
Now I need to recover my old version of windows because VPN doesn't work on vista.

I've tried several thing but didn't find a sollution. I have a file windows.old with 2 subdirectories : documents and setting and program files, I have also on the C directory a folder named winnt can i do something with it??

Super Moderator

New Member

Ok, I've managed thanks to the great guide to start up my PC in Windows XP, but it ends after the Windows XP screen with a blue screen and no log-in. I've tried to copy my Documents and Settings folder to C: but I can't see the folder in Dos. What have I done wrong or what can I do???

New Member

Super Moderator

Folders such as boot, the old Windows folder, the Users folder, etc. I haven't done this myself, so can't be of much more help than this. Can you boot the computer ok in safe mode (F8 repeatedly until the advanced boot options menu appears)? Some Vista only compatible software or drivers may have been installed that are still present with XP that might be causing these problems. You could also try last known good configuration to see if that works. No restore points are going to help at this point because they were likely created after the computer was upgraded, so system restore is not an option.

I'd go ahead and start looking for your XP disc, in case a re-install is necessary. A lot of other users here have got XP to boot again but have had similar issues that we have yet to get to the bottom of short of re-installation.

New Member

ok, I'm back at the beginning of the end
This error message was the reason I've put in my Cd of Vista. I get the message "Couldn't find boot.ini"
Starting op from hal.dll but this is an incorrupt or defective file. I copied hal.dll from a working PC but no result.
How can i get my boot.ini file back??

Knows where his towel is.

The HAL missing or corrupt is telling you that boot.ini is not pointing to the right place. (If boot.ini is not there, NTLDR uses internal defaults, which will work if they point to your system by pure serendipity - not a good thing to rely on)
Make your own boot.ini from scratch using the wiki as a starting point. Copy/paste the sample and edit rdisk() and partition() to the correct values to point at your XP partition.
Put the file in the root of your "system" "active" partition.

Terry

Baker of fine scones.

Please keep requests for help in the forums where everyone can see them, not in Private Messages.Posting a plea for help or information in the forum, will be seen more quickly by a widely experienced audience.A solution in the forum could also be useful to other future visitors, so PLEASE, no private requests. (they won't be answered !)

Knows where his towel is.

Post what you've created here and we'll take a look at it.
Post a screenshot of your disk management display from Vista too, and the contents of the "settings" page from EasyBCD (in detailed - debug mode) so we can see where everything is (or should be).

Terry

Baker of fine scones.

Please keep requests for help in the forums where everyone can see them, not in Private Messages.Posting a plea for help or information in the forum, will be seen more quickly by a widely experienced audience.A solution in the forum could also be useful to other future visitors, so PLEASE, no private requests. (they won't be answered !)

Knows where his towel is.

Please keep requests for help in the forums where everyone can see them, not in Private Messages.Posting a plea for help or information in the forum, will be seen more quickly by a widely experienced audience.A solution in the forum could also be useful to other future visitors, so PLEASE, no private requests. (they won't be answered !)

New Member

If Y choose Windows XP pro: Still the hal.dll error
If Y chosse Recovery: Just a black screen, nothing else
If Y choose Default: "Windows could not start because of an error in the software. Please report this problem as: load needed DLLs for kernel."